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National Tourism Development Authority has invested just over €14.5million in 11 new tourism projects set to be completed in 2025.
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Latest research shows over 80% of tourism businesses are expecting their visitor levels to be up in or the same in 2025 however cost pressures continue to dominate concerns, especially ‘energy’ (cited by 57%) and ‘payroll’ (56%).
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The plans include significant investments in destination development, domestic marketing, festivals to spread visitors beyond the busy summer months and initiatives to attract more business events to Ireland.
Fáilte Ireland has unveiled its ambitious plans to drive sustainable tourism development across Ireland at its annual industry briefing today. The National Tourism Development Authority unveiled its 2025 plans at a special virtual event for the tourism industry. The event was opened by newly appointed Minister for Tourism Peter Burke TD and watched online by over 2,000 tourism operators, providers, and employers from across the sector.
A robust programme of initiatives is at the heart of these plans, designed to support tourism businesses in driving revenue and maintaining competitiveness, ensuring the continued growth and sustainability of Ireland’s tourism industry. Key components include supporting the sustainable and authentic development of year-round destinations throughout Ireland, highlighting the diverse tourism offerings across the country to boost domestic travel and new plans to strengthen the business tourism sector.
Additionally, the National Tourism Development Authority has invested €14.5 million in 11 new tourism projects set to be completed across the country this year1. These projects leverage Ireland’s rich heritage, history, and natural landscapes to attract visitors.
Recognising the importance of festivals and events as key motivators for off-peak travel, Fáilte Ireland will continue supporting key festivals across the year including New Year’s Festival Dublin, St Patrick’s Festival Dublin, 6 regional St. Patrick’s Day festivals and Púca in Co. Meath. In addition, Fáilte Ireland will invest €600,000 in a programme of events across various regions of Ireland that will establish the month of October as a time to visit Ireland and experience the authentic Home of Halloween.
As part of its ongoing commitment to growth, Fáilte Ireland's plans for 2025 focus on helping businesses grow revenue as they continue to face cost pressures. This will be done through business supports focussed on four strategic areas (climate, digitisation, people & performance and commercial resilience), a full programme of sales opportunities, and the continued roll out of a business tourism strategy to attract more business events to Ireland. There is also a robust programme of domestic marketing activity planned, aimed at spreading visitors across the regions beyond the busy summer months.
As part of the online session, Fáilte Ireland shared its
latest research on the tourism industry’s performance in 2024 as well as expectations for 2025. Outlook for the year ahead was positive among respondents with 39% of businesses expecting their visitor levels to be up in 2025, and 42% expecting volumes to remain the same as last year. However, cost pressures continue to dominate concerns, especially ‘energy’ (cited by 57%) and ‘payroll’ (56%).
Commenting on the briefing, Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Peter Burke said:
“Fáilte Ireland’s plans outline an ambitious programme of work to deliver for visitors and communities across the country. Tourism is a key economic driver, and crucial for employment particularly in rural areas. In line with our new Programme for Government, these robust plans look to create a balanced regional spread of tourism, develop long-term, sustainable, well-paid careers in the industry, enhance our tourism infrastructure and support the sustainable growth of this sector. I look forward to working with my Department, Fáilte Ireland and the wider tourism industry over the coming years to champion tourism and support the sustainable development of the sector for the benefit of our economy, our communities, our industry, and our visitors.”
During the briefing the National Tourism Development Authority welcomed the 7.6% increase in tourism beds available due to the cessation of government contracts and the opening of new accommodation capacity as positive for tourism.
Commenting on the plans, Fáilte Ireland CEO Paul Kelly said:
"While we acknowledge the significant cost and profitability challenges facing the tourism sector, we are starting the year on a positive note. The tourism sector in Ireland is now offering the greatest choice of things to see and do, providing a wider range of accommodation options and attractions that make Ireland an even more attractive holiday destination for both international and domestic visitors.
However, we are facing a year where visitor access capacity hasn’t grown as fast as the capacity to host visitors and profitability will be the key concern for businesses. This will likely require individual businesses to be as competitive as possible to attract both domestic and overseas business. The plans we are unveiling today are designed to help tourism businesses do just that. Our investments in capital projects, marketing, and festivals across the country will drive visitors directly to destinations and into businesses. Additionally, our comprehensive range of support measures will be tailored to help the industry address its most pressing challenges."
Specific online briefings for each of Fáilte Ireland’s regional experience brands – Ireland’s Ancient East, Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands, Dublin and the Wild Atlantic Way will take place on Thursday 27th February.
Product Development
To continue to build the appeal of destinations across Ireland for both domestic and international visitors, Fáilte Ireland will support the continued development and delivery of exceptional visitor experiences and attractions.
Projects due for completion in 2025 include:
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Dublin Castle Records Tower, Dublin – A new lift will be installed, granting visitors access to the top of the historic tower, offering panoramic views and include a new museum showcasing Dublin’s medieval treasures.
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The Little Museum of Dublin, Dublin – Enhancements will make the museum universally accessible, and will include new exhibitions and a new lift installation.
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Dún Aonghasa, Inis Mór, Galway– Redevelopment of the visitor centre will tell the compelling story of survival, focusing on climate change and the island's ancient inhabitants. A series of satellite interpretation hubs will further enhance the visitor experience.
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Carrowmore, Co Sligo – Strengthening its link to the Céide Fields in Co. Mayo, this project will include a new immersive exhibition, positioning Carrowmore as a hub for Neolithic exploration in the region.
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New Farm Trail, Connemara National Park, Galway – The first phase of trail development will open a previously inaccessible part of the park, alleviating pressure on existing trails.
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Bray Head Signature Discovery Point, Kerry – A transformed Signal Tower will feature a new viewing platform with views of the Skelligs.
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Outdoor Water Sports Facilities – The first four of nineteen new water sports facilities will be completed in 2025 in Curracloe (Wexford), Ballycuggaran (Clare), Acres Lake (Leitrim), and Fenit (Kerry), enhancing Ireland’s status as a premier activity destination.
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Mountain Biking Expansion – Nearly 200km of new and upgraded trails will be developed, with additional facilities to enhance the mountain biking experience.
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Festivals: In 2025 Fáilte Ireland will launch a new investment programme for festivals. As part of a tri-agency group comprising of Fáilte Ireland, Tourism Ireland and Tourism Northern Ireland will complete a strategy and action plan to position Ireland as the authentic Home of Halloween. Fáilte Ireland will invest €600k in 2025 to establish a programme of events across various regions of Ireland throughout October. This initiative aims to establish Ireland as the ultimate destination to experience Halloween in its authentic form. The Púca festival in Co. Meath will be flagship event of the proposition.
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EU Just Transition: Under the EU Just Transition Investment Scheme, €68million has been secured for regenerative tourism and placemaking, benefiting businesses and communities affected by the transition away from peat production. To date, over €38 million approved for 48 high visitor impact regenerative tourism projects and 70 digital projects across 8 counties in the Midlands through the EU Just Transition Fund.
Industry Supports
As part of its ongoing commitment to industry growth, Fáilte Ireland is aligning business supports under four strategic pillars Climate Action, Commercial Resilience, People and Performance, and Digitisation.
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Climate Action: Fáilte Ireland’s Climate Action Programme is designed to help businesses reduce costs, improve efficiency, and lower environmental impact. It provides access to government supports, grants, and expert advice. The fully subsidised programme provides businesses with dedicated expert advisors to develop tailored Climate Action Plans, access funding opportunities, and receive ongoing support for a minimum of three years. The programme has now been reopened for tourism businesses.
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Commercial Resilience: Recognising the impact of rising energy, payroll, and input costs on profitability and competitiveness, Fáilte Ireland will provide robust supports to address these challenges. Fáilte Ireland’s Cost Management Clinics provide tourism businesses confidential one-hour sessions with business experts, cover labour & payroll, business overheads, food & beverage operations, and accommodation operations. To address the challenge of balancing cost coverage with competitiveness, Failte Ireland’s Value-Based Revenue Strategies programme offers in-person workshops for General Managers and Commercial Revenue Managers. These workshops, along with our Strategic Ticketing for Business Results programme and upcoming Enhancing Retail Performance for Visitor Attractions initiative, aim to improve sales and revenue performance across the industry.
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People and Performance: Fáilte Ireland aims to continue to elevate tourism careers in 2025 through the Employer Excellence Programme, which supports employee engagement and workplace improvements. Key initiatives include recruitment partnerships, upskilling opportunities via LearniFI, and operational efficiency clinics. These efforts have improved career perceptions and retention rates in the industry.
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Digitisation: Fáilte Ireland continues to evolve its digital supports, with new initiatives in Digital Accessibility and AI in tourism for 2025. A new Industry Digitalisation Strategy will be delivered in 2025, focusing on unlocking cost efficiencies and driving productivity across business operations in all sectors of the industry.
Sustainable Destination Development
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Industry Digitalisation: In 2025, Fáilte Ireland will continue to enhance the digital presence of tourism businesses through its Digital that Delivers programme and the digital element of the EU Just Transition Programme. Fáilte Ireland will also develop a new Industry Digitalisation Strategy, focusing on delivering further cost efficiencies and productivity in tourism operations.
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Sustainable Destination Development: In 2025 sustainable destination development will be guided by Fáilte Ireland’s four Regional Tourism Development Strategies, supported by localised Destination and Experience Development Plans (DEDPs). These five-year plans follow a best practice destination stewardship approach, co-created and jointly managed by all key stakeholders in a destination. By mid-2025, there will be 25 active DEDPs with 400 actions of varying scale and complexity to be progressed across the year. The DEDPs will be aligned with 140 capital projects that are in the pipeline to ensure the quality of the tourism product is enhanced across the country.
Driving Demand
Fáilte Ireland will continue to leverage a broad mix of marketing tools to motivate key target audiences to choose Ireland as their holiday destination, with a strong emphasis on seasonality and regionality.
To achieve this, it will focus on:
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Increasing the appeal and relevancy of destinations in Ireland among key target audiences through its Keep Discovering domestic marketing campaign which will run throughout the year aiming to drive 4.5million visits across both DiscoverIreland.ie and VisitDublin.com and, in turn, 1.2 million referrals to tourism businesses.
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This will also be supported through the RTE Weather Sponsorship with 120 stings airing weekly reaching an average audience of 1.6 million people per week.
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Working in partnership with Tourism Ireland to drive the appeal of Ireland internationally and increase the average spend per day and length of stay overseas visitors.
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Encourage consumers to book a trip by promoting festivals, events, occasions, and other great reasons to travel.
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Implement the new Business Events strategy 2030 which has been developed by Fáilte Ireland, Tourism Ireland, and the Department of Tourism to unlock the potential of business events. Targets set for 2025 are to create €270 million euros of new leads to support industry in winning €200 million in new business.
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Continue to provide industry with easy-to-use best practice sales and marketing tools and supports.
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